Where I wish I was

Most days working in my craft room with the big windows overlooking a magnolia tree and the street below is ideal.  But sometimes I feel the city noise and pollution, the neighbors, the mailman and dogs out side are too much of a distraction.  I daydream a lot about the perfect place to make art, places of quiet inspiration.  Here are my top three:

My chateau in France:

My private beach front estate in Maui:

My free spirit sphere (haven't decided what forest to settle down in yet)

When I win the lottery I'll buy all three and just travel back and forth, you can come visit sometime.

I'm in the upcycle exchange!

If you are in St. Louis looking for a way to save good craft supplies (and by craft supplies I do mean candy wrappers, plastic bags, and other recycled goodies along with the usual stuff) from the trash then check out The Upcycle Exchange.  They've been hard at work, making a structure to filter craft supplies away from the landfills and toward lucky artists like me.

Look! here I am on the artist's page.

I often get asked what items I am looking for or would like to be saved for me.  I'm working on getting that information into my blog sidebar where I can update and keep current, but until then here is my upcycle list:

candy wrappers, starburst wrappers, dum dum wrappers, laffy taffy wrappers, candy bar wrapers - if no sticky stuff, plastic shopping bags (colors only - no white, beige, or gray) plastic food packaging, (i.e. large candy bags, oreo bags, fruit snacks packages, ramen noodle bags), capri sun pouches, buttons, felt, origami paper, craft paper,


Or if you are looking for the complete list for all the upcycle exchange artists look here: http://www.upxchange.com/wish-list/


I am excited to be joining the exchange, and so very grateful to the people who take the time to save their wrappers and supplies for me, candy calamity would be nowhere without you!

Making pouches from fused plastic

I love fusing household plastic (shopping bags, product packaging, newspaper bags) to make a new fun material to work with. In the past I've used fused plastic to make fun flower buttons and magnets, but I'm ready to take the next step and move on to something bigger. Bigger sheets of fused plastic can be used just like fabric to make wallets, pouches, and purses; but first I've got to learn how to sew on it. Here are my first attempts:






I learned a lot along the way, but still have some tinkering to do before I come up with a final design I'm happy with.

Illustration Friday - Fearless

Craft 365 - day 245
Originally uploaded by candy_calamity

For this weeks Illustration Friday theme 'fearless' I drew a girl walking on a tight rope over chaos, we can see where she came from, but where is she going?

I decided to be more fearless with my art, and gave up my usual tiny workbook and tight controlled ink lines, instead working with pastels making lose free marks on a really big piece of paper (and I did not pencil in anything first)

Smile!

I haven't been crafting or blogging as much as usual, I'm in a slump of sorts, but am working to get some momentum going to get back to my artsy upcycley goodness.


This Lipton Tea commercial staring Hugh Jackman makes me squeal with glee:



I hope you find some glee in your day today as well!

Free desktop background cupcake

I have a lot of fun making new yummy backgrounds for my computer and decided to share one with you.
 I made some delicious cupcakes with marshmallow frosting the other day.  After spending a long time trying to get the little curlicues of frosting on top to look just right, I realized they looked soooo cute I needed to take a picture.  It took a lot of patience to pose the cupcake and take a few shots when all I wanted to do is eat them all up.  The cupcakes didn't last long, but I really enjoy how this desktop background turned out.



Uploaded with ImageShack.us

It's sized to fit my 17 inch laptop monitor when I set the background to stretch with out distorting the picture.

DOWNLOAD HERE


Warning:  Staring at this desktop background photo for extended periods may cause intense cupcake cravings.